Brightline Orlando extension

[jis]

Which is how Disney is trying to do it too.

Use other people money, but be sure to pay yourself first.

It would be interesting to see what the deal between Disney and Brightline looks like. Of course, the fact that Brightline intended tog et to I-4 via the 417 Corridor anyway makes a slight detour to Disney a much less onerous proposition than trying to convince them to go via the route that Rick Scott rejected money for in the first round of Orlando Tampa HSR saga.

 

[Just-Thinking-51]

Tired of how the world work. Call it a tribute, a bribe, or a non-competition agreement. It all the same.

 

[joelkfla]

It would be interesting to see what the deal between Disney and Brightline looks like. Of course, the fact that Brightline intended tog et to I-4 via the 417 Corridor anyway makes a slight detour to Disney a much less onerous proposition than trying to convince them to go via the route that Rick Scott rejected money for in the first round of Orlando Tampa HSR saga.

I'm not sure there's anything nefarious about it, or even that any money is changing hands. Increasing visitation from So. FL is naturally beneficial to both companies.

 

[jis]

In Melbourne FL, I went by the Crane Creek Bridge construction site. The high level structure is just for staging construction equipment. The actual new bridge structure is between it and the original bridge. All the piers are in place. That is what will carry the new tracks I guess. Not clear to me whether it is a single track bridge augmenting the existing track or there will be additional cross beams over each pier supporting a double track superstructure. Should become obvious in a bit



Construction materials staged on the high level structure.



The concrete piers for the new bridge.

At Eu Gallie Creek they may be doing something similar eventually. The construction there is lagging this one a bit as it would appear.

Now to go and check out what is going on at Sebastian River down south. That is a much longer trestle. I have to go to a family get together in Sebastian this weekend anyway, so will have a chance to check it out without doing a trip just for that.

 

[user 1215]

That still doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me. Why not start construction replacing the long abandoned second track trestle that already meets the alignment? Maybe the original alignment isn't recoverable...

I know there are smarter people than me planning all this. Just curious to learn.

 

[jis]

They had said earlier on that they were going to "replace" this trestle, which might mean that after they have buikt the one track new trestle, they will tear down the old trestle and build a second one track new trestle in its place. I am just speculating. I have no special inside knowledge.

 

[Brian_tampa]

I remember reading somewhere that the current double track bridges would be replaced with 2 single track bridge structures. The temporary trestle is for the crane to remove the existing structure and install the new bridge components. I am not sure if they will build a second temporary construction trestle on the opposite side once the first new bridge is in place. I can't see how they could build the second bridge opposite of the new bridge (and existing construction trestle) without significant disruption to train operations.

 

[jis]

I remember reading somewhere that the current double track bridges would be replaced with 2 single track bridge structures. The temporary trestle is for the crane to remove the existing structure and install the new bridge components. I am not sure if they will build a second temporary construction trestle on the opposite side once the first new bridge is in place. I can't see how they could build the second bridge opposite of the new bridge (and existing construction trestle) without significant disruption to train operations.

I think this single temporary trestle will serve both new trestles, and dismantling of the existing bridge which is on the other side of the first new trestle, but still pretty close by and within easy reach of a crane anchored in to the staging temporary trestle.

There are no more than two or three trains a day through there at present, mostly at night too. I can normally hear their distant horn which they blow for the Palm Bay Road, Port Malabar Road and Malabar Road crossings.

 

[west point]

This poster suspects that the bridges need replacing for several reasons.
1. The FEC was built mainly as a passenger carrier with light weight trains and the bridges need replacing for the heavier freights that have been on the rails for many years.
2. Brightline will travel at a much higher speed and the bridge(s) need to be able to handle a full emergency braking on the bridge.
3. Bridge(s) may be at or near the end of their service life.
4. Clearances may be increased above mean high water to allow for any climate caused higher tides ?
5. maybe give some pleasure boats more clearance to keep populaces happier with more trains ?

 

[cirdan]

I think this single temporary trestle will serve both new trestles, and dismantling of the existing bridge which is on the other side of the first new trestle, but still pretty close by and within easy reach of a crane anchored in to the staging temporary trestle.

... although that would mean lifting heavy stuff over an active rail line?

 

[user 1215]

Makes a little more sense now. I see the original trestle is technically a single unit, so they can't remove/rebuild "half" of it at a time. I'm surprised this thing still stands.

 

[jis]

... although that would mean lifting heavy stuff over an active rail line?

There are only three or four trains a day. There will be long stretches of inactivity to schedule the heavy lifting in.

AFAICT only heavy stuff that will be lifted across the new bridge are the new girder beams which are staged on the temporary trestle. The old bridge will be dismantled and pieces lowered onto barges to carry away for scrapping.

If the new pillars are any indication I don’t believe there will be any change in the level at which the tracks will be. There may be marginally greater clearance under the bridge due to the use of more modern thinner girder beams. There is very little leisure boat traffic west of the bridge. All of it pretty much stops at the Melbourne Yacht Club Marina east of the the Rt. 1 bridge. Only small outborad motor boats and such occasionally go further up river. No tall crafts. Crane Creek is not a designated Naval Waterway.

 

[joelkfla]

May 2021 update to CFX board:

• PTC on Miami to WPB expected to be complete by November
• Resumption of service by end of year
• WPB to Orlando construction 54% complete
• OIA to Disney design at 30% complete
• Disney to Tampa in conceptual design stage
• Orlando Vehicle Maintenance Facility could be used by SunRail or Amtrak
• Innovation Way (east of OIA) to Disney is being built to allow for future double tracking to support potential SunRail sharing

Slides are in attached PDF.

Video: Brightline update starts @12:35
https://otv.ocfl.net/otv/CFX/CFX2021/CFEXP051321/CFX051321.mp4

 

[Qapla]

https://www.orlandosentinel.com/new...0210513-wd6j4crxzzehbpcztvtjyjcuki-story.html

 

[neroden]

After looking at the Brightline construction advisory of 5/2/21, I think I have a better sense of what the slowest items in the construction are.

The bridges over Eau Gallie River (Melbourne) and Turkey Creek (Palm Bay), are scheduled to have ongoing construction through Q3 2022. The bridge over the Sebastian River (Sebastian) through "2022". The others are all supposed to be done earlier: Crane Creek (Melbourne) in Q2 2022, and most other stuff is listed as finishing in 2021. Although the Loxahatchee River (Jupiter) bridge may have a second part to it based on the work description.

From Orlando to Cocoa, there's one bridge (SR 520) which has barely started, with some drainage to deal with in the area too, and the precast-segment tunnel under 528 is a slow process, but the rest of the civil construction looks likely to be done well before the end of 2021.

This definitely makes me wonder if they can get service to Orlando running earlier in 2022 than their planned end-of-2022. They'd be four bridges short -- and in each case, by then they may already have one single-track bridge and be working on the second one. This might allow an early start. It would certainly be to their benefit to get some revenue coming in from Orlando-Miami trips ASAP.

 

[jis]

Someone from FECRS who knows folks at FECR mentioned to me that the Crane Creek Bridge will essentially be closed to traffic most of the day and be open to traffic only at designated hours when the few freights on the route are scheduled to go by. This would suggest that they have no plans to operate any hourly sort of service during the day until the two bridges are completed. This is likely true at the other bridges too. So I would be very surprised if they start anything before all the bridge work is completed. But of course time will tell.

 

[neroden]

It is very interesting that the critical path is running through the replacement of three bridges on the existing line, all of which are nonessential to service. I mean, right now they have a lot of other things going on, so they're probably not thinking about it, but if they get to Q1 of 2022 and they have complete operating track and signal everywhere else, someone is going to start looking at those bridges critically.

 

[cirdan]

If the new pillars are any indication I don’t believe there will be any change in the level at which the tracks will be. There may be marginally greater clearance under the bridge due to the use of more modern thinner girder beams. There is very little leisure boat traffic west of the bridge. All of it pretty much stops at the Melbourne Yacht Club Marina east of the the Rt. 1 bridge. Only small outborad motor boats and such occasionally go further up river. No tall crafts. Crane Creek is not a designated Naval Waterway.

Will the new bridges have ballasted track? Or will the track be rigid? If so, this might be a way to scrape a few inches of clearance for the beams.

 

[jis]

Will the new bridges have ballasted track? Or will the track be rigid? If so, this might be a way to scrape a few inches of clearance for the beams.

There is no need to get any additional clearance. There is no tall boat traffic upstream of the Rt. 1. bridge which is downstream from this bridge.

 

[cocojacoby]

May 2021 update to CFX board:

• PTC on Miami to WPB expected to be complete by November
• Resumption of service by end of year
• WPB to Orlando construction 54% complete
• OIA to Disney design at 30% complete
• Disney to Tampa in conceptual design stage
• Orlando Vehicle Maintenance Facility could be used by SunRail or Amtrak
• Innovation Way (east of OIA) to Disney is being built to allow for future double tracking to support potential SunRail sharing

Slides are in attached PDF.

Video: Brightline update starts @12:35
https://otv.ocfl.net/otv/CFX/CFX2021/CFEXP051321/CFX051321.mp4

You got to be impressed with this, right? Pretty amazing that this is actually happening. Got to give them a lot of credit.

I never was really comfortable with the idea of a private business taking over the NEC but this does make me wonder . . . what if?

 

[jis]

You got to be impressed with this, right? Pretty amazing that this is actually happening. Got to give them a lot of credit.

I never was really comfortable with the idea of a private business taking over the NEC but this does make me wonder . . . what if?

I would refrain from counting the chicken before the eggs hatch. I would first let them run the full service for a couple of years and see how the finances pan out before getting impressed enough to consider bargaining away the NEC. The NEC is three orders of magnitude more complex than running maybe 16 round trips a day on a railroad part of which is dedicated to exactly those 16 trains, and the other part with only three to five freight trains a day that are mostly temporally separated.

At the present time a significant majority of people here are still worried that they will eventually be handed a bunch of stuff to bring onto taxpayer funded stuff which very few of the taxpayers here bargained for.

The model looks viable, but the taste of all models lies in what happens in actuality. So wait and watch is at least my position on this matter. Wish them well, but watch out for pitfalls.

 

[cirdan]

I would refrain from counting the chicken before the eggs hatch. I would first let them run the full service for a couple of years and see how the finances pan out before getting impressed enough to consider bargaining away the NEC. The NEC is three orders of magnitude more complex than running maybe 16 round trips a day on a railroad part of which is dedicated to exactly those 16 trains, and the other part with only three to five freight trains a day that are mostly temporally separated.

I agree with your point about wait and see. We will be able to form a clearer opinion when the service has been burnt in and has run for a few years. Will it abstract significant numbers from highways and airlines, for example?

Maybe the comparison with the NEC is unfair, but there are many corridors and proposed corridors that were being discussed and studied long before Brightline was ever thought of, and they're still not there today, or if they are coming together then its often with painful slowness, or even if they are running, are nowhere near attaining the speeds of frequency that Brightline will be offering. I think an important thought here is to come away from assuming that only Amtrak has what it takes to run a corridor service.

 

[Anderson]

I agree with your point about wait and see. We will be able to form a clearer opinion when the service has been burnt in and has run for a few years. Will it abstract significant numbers from highways and airlines, for example?

Maybe the comparison with the NEC is unfair, but there are many corridors and proposed corridors that were being discussed and studied long before Brightline was ever thought of, and they're still not there today, or if they are coming together then its often with painful slowness, or even if they are running, are nowhere near attaining the speeds of frequency that Brightline will be offering. I think an important thought here is to come away from assuming that only Amtrak has what it takes to run a corridor service.

The NEC is complicated by the tangle of commuter operations on it or touching it at various points. The closest analogue would be if Amtrak were handling all pax traffic on the NEC (perhaps save lines only temporarily touching it at major stations...Brunswick/Camden at WAS, for example).

 

[west point]

I have no idea how complicated this PTC mess is on the FEC ? Brightline might have wanted to restore service MIA - Palm Beach this summer but cannot as FEC's PTC is not yet FRA operational. The same goes for reduced service to Cocoa as nothing has been posted to my knowledge as to when that section will be PTC operational? I could imagine that Brightline might like to go to Cocoa to cover future cruise ship operations if the Florida governor can get the conflict he has with the CDC resolved.

All this so Brightline can restore the operational knowledge it has lost so it can eventually operate to Orlando seamlessly.

 

[jis]

I have no idea how complicated this PTC mess is on the FEC ? Brightline might have wanted to restore service MIA - Palm Beach this summer but cannot as FEC's PTC is not yet FRA operational. The same goes for reduced service to Cocoa as nothing has been posted to my knowledge as to when that section will be PTC operational? I could imagine that Brightline might like to go to Cocoa to cover future cruise ship operations if the Florida governor can get the conflict he has with the CDC resolved.

All this so Brightline can restore the operational knowledge it has lost so it can eventually operate to Orlando seamlessly.

No. They had no plan to restore service anywhere before 3rd calendar quarter this year. The PTC work is running on schedule so far.

At this time the future Cocoa-Rockledge station is not part of any building plan. I doubt it will come about before DeSantis Governorship is over.